The Gazette is beginning a partnership with Legacy.com that will bring a different look to our online obituary page and allow the page to be completely open to online visitors for viewing and commenting.
With our newest change to obituaries on The Gazette website, we hope to aid the grief process by allowing others to share memories, stories and sympathy on our site.
Early last year, The Gazette’s website went to a subscription-based format. With a newspaper subscription, readers could access anything online they wanted. But without a subscription, their ability to interact or read stories was limited.
Those limitations included obituaries on the site. Paid subscribers could view the obituaries, however, nonsubscribers were limited to the first few lines of an obituary. Now, our online obituaries are available to any online reader.

Effective today, in an effort to bring an improved obituaries product to all website users, The Gazette is teaming with the well-known Legacy.com obituaries source.
Legacy.com collaborates with more than 800 newspapers in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand to provide ways for readers to express condolences and share remembrances of loved ones and useful content.
Legacy.com draws more than 18 million visitors each month. It partners with 85 of the 100 largest newspapers in the U.S. and features obituaries and guest books for approximately 75 percent of people who die in the U.S.
In addition to bringing our obituaries out from behind the subscription pay wall — allowing all visitors to see and read our obituaries — the partnership with Legacy.com allows The Gazette to offer online guest book services for condolences to family and friends.
Sharing grief can sometimes be the best way to heal after a loss. This will allow another format for that sharing of stories and memories.
The new format also provides driving directions to local funeral homes with interactive maps, links to national charities for providing donations in the name of someone who has passed and other useful content.
It is our way of providing just one more service to the family and friends of those who have passed.